


Again

by Odyle



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/pseuds/Odyle
Summary: Feel the fear,Aava thought as she stepped toward him.Let it guide you.





	Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leidolette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/gifts).



“Again.”

Tamlin straightened his posture and returned to the first position. After a deep breath in, he began to flow through the sequence, striking out at unseen enemies as Aava paced around him, inspecting his form.

Aava noted that he kept an eye on his reflection in the mirrors that lined the dojo walls, but it did him little good. His footwork was sloppy and he favored his left side. His command of defensive forms far outstripped his skills at offense. Any half competent enemy would easily find an unguarded spot to strike before he ever landed a blow. They had wasted months on this form.

He’d been initially shy to pick up a lightsaber, but had grown at ease with it under her guidance. Something about the knowledge that this was an offensive form kept him back.

Tamlin came to a stop as he finished the sequence, holding the last position as he awaited her instructions. Parrying from above. It was a position of power, but Tamlin had none of the fight necessary for it. If it had been a real opponent before him rather than the air, he’d have been dead after only a few strokes.

He had so much potential, but he was so far behind. He might not ever realize that potential, Aava thought. The crew were fixated on preventing him from any meaningful connection to the dark side of the force. They undermined her teaching, but Aava saw his nature. Tamlin was born of Dathomir, a child of the dark side. He harmed himself by avoiding it.

“Sloppy. Maybe you need a little encouragement,” Aava said as she held up a hand, as though to call on the magick of his tattoos.

Tamlin sunk back into a defensive stance, stumbling back a few steps before he locked his knees and held his ground.

 _Feel the fear,_ Aava thought as she stepped toward him. _Let it guide you._

The crew did everything in their power to shield Tamlin from the cruelties of the universe. He didn’t know hunger or want. Love and kindness surrounded him. There was loss, but that was not so keenly felt after the memories of childhood faded. There were few paths to connecting to the dark side for Tamlin. The gift she could give him was fear.

Aava stepped forward, advancing on her apprentice.

_Don’t ignore it. Be afraid._

The tension was cut by the sound of clapping. The rest of the crew had gone off on some wild mission in the name of rebellion or making credits. She and Tamlin should have been alone together on the ship for at least another day. Aava glanced back to find Tryst leaning against the door frame.

When she turned back to Tamlin, his stance had relaxed, safe in the knowledge that with Tryst there she surely wouldn’t dare to raise a hand against him.

She brought her hand down and sighed. “Take a rest. Water. Stretching, ” Aava instructed.

Her pupil nodded and switched off his lightsaber, going to the far corner of the dojo to give his master and her lover some privacy. He’d gotten to the age where things like kissing were no longer gross, merely embarrassing. Tamlin made himself scarce when she and Tryst were in the same room, deeply uncomfortable with Tryst’s propensity for public displays of affection.

“You’re back early,” Aava said as she approached him.

Tryst brushed a quick kiss on her forehead and she allowed it. He smelled like dust and stale air, and she suspected that he hadn’t showered since he’d arrived back on the ship.

“Funny story--Leenik blew up the warehouse.”

“Is that a funny story?” Aava asked.

Tryst placed a hand on her shoulder, where a cutout in her top revealed bare skin. “So, how about you blow the kid off and we make up for some lost time.”

Aava shrugged away from the touch. “Do you really think that’s appropriate?”

“Hey, kid,” Tryst called to Tamlin. “How would you like an afternoon off?”

Tamlin looked up from where he was in the process of stretching his hamstrings. He looked from Tryst to Aava, searching for approval.

“Fine,” Aava said. “But we need to meditate.”

“Meet me in the room.” Tryst winked, then turned and fled before either of them could ask him to join them for meditation. Aava was glad to see him go as what she had to say was not for his ears.

She joined her apprentice on the floor, settling in for a session that would at least be long enough for Tryst to get bored and visit the fresher. She guided Tamlin through breathing, then to a long meditation. He was unsettled. She felt the agitation coming off of him as he sat beside her on the floor.

“I know what you’re thinking… and I don’t want to,” Tamlin said.

“That doesn’t matter. You have to do what you must to learn how to use the Force,” Aava said.

“But why can’t I learn it here?”

“Tell me, Tamlin. How is your current form?”

Tamlin flushed, his white skin turning pink. “Maybe I can just try harder.”

“I think that living on this ship has been a distraction,” Aava said. More effort wouldn’t overcome his comfort and ease here.

“This is my home.”

“How would you feel if you hurt someone?”

Tamlin looked away, ashamed of himself. They were both aware that the question was not a hypothetical, but there was no need to provoke him.

“I am not doing this to hurt you,” Aava said. “I am doing this so that you will be as strong as you need to be for what awaits you.”

Her apprentice turned away from her, reaching up to brush a tear away. She sensed anger and doubt, both directed at himself.

“I am giving you the afternoon. I want you to pack. Nothing more than you can fit in a backpack. We will leave in a few hours. I’ll come to your room when it is time.”

She left him there to finish his meditation, knowing that he needed time to reflect. Aava made her way through the ship to the quarters that she shared with Tryst. All of the lights were off when she stepped inside and the air was slightly moist as though the ensuite fresher had just been used. Tryst was splayed out on the bed, dressed in nothing but the towel wrapped around his head where he’d been drying his hair.

She wondered how he could possibly have been comfortable. This part of the ship always felt cold to her. Even now her hands were cold.

Aava flexed her fingers, trying to bring some of the feeling back into them.

Tryst slumbered away as she sat down on the bed beside him, his back turned to her so she could fully appreciate the constellation on bad tattoos that dotted his back. She’d successfully talked him out of tattooing her name on his body, but it had been a near thing.

Aava pressed her fingers against the heat of his back. Tryst squirmed in his sleep as her cold fingers touched his bare skin, but he didn’t wake.

She would miss him. Perhaps admitting that even to herself was a sign of weakness. They had grown from a matter of convenience to something she didn’t want to put a label to. A label might mean recognizing its importance, which Aava refused to do. Tamlin was not the only one who’d been distracted from his task.

Tryst groaned and arched his back and Aava concentrated on scratching her nails between his shoulder blades until he sighed and rolled over to face her.

“What took you so long?” Tryst said, pulling the towel from his head and tossing it on the floor.

“I was in the middle of a lesson,” Aava said. She reached forward to brush a lock of blond hair out of his eyes.

“Not everything has to be about school.”

“Unfortunately for young Tamlin, that’s not the case,” Aava said. She slipped off her shoes and curled up on the bed beside him. There was a kimono balled up beneath one of the pillows at the head of the bed. Aava pulled it free, then draped the open kimono over both of them. “He has to understand the metaphysical aspects of using the force as well as he understands the physical. That requires meditation.”

“Are you sure you’re not teaching him any dark side of the Force stuff?” Tryst asked.

“That isn’t a useful dichotomy.”

“Because you have to tell me if you are.”

“Go to sleep, Trystan Valentine. There will be time for us later.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She found her apprentice sitting on the ruins of a low garden wall, looking out into the swamp. The night was coming on and the bugs in the swamp were singing. When she closed her eyes and felt the Force, she could hear the planet humming and feel the power of it radiate through her body. Dathomir was dead, and yet there was still life here.

“Your thoughts?” Aava asked as she approached and sat down beside the boy. He wouldn’t be a child for much longer. Tamlin already stood a head taller than her. There was strength in him, even if he didn’t see it yet.

Tamlin refused to look at her. His eyes were fixed on some point in the fog that hung over the low ground. “I keep thinking about them. Do you think they’ll be okay?”

His attachment to them was too strong. She’d known this for years. It would be difficult to break him of it now. _I shouldn’t have waited so long,_ Aava chided herself.

“That is no longer a concern,” Aava said. “Your focus should be on your training.”

“It’s hard. They’re out there and I don’t know if they’re okay.” He drew his limbs in, holding them close as though for warmth despite the heat. “I know this is where I need to be,” he added quietly.

“You will see them again,” Aava said.

She returned to the temple, leaving him there to contemplate and watch the sunset. Here on Dathomir she could teach him what he needed to know. There was no Bacta to cluck over every subject of her tutelage, no Leenik Geelo “of the Mynock”, and no Lyntel’luroon observing her silently. Most importantly, there was no Tryst Valentine.

Mindful of her own attachments, she settled to her knees and slowed her breathing. A Nightsister did not admit distraction. In her apprentice, there would be no such weakness.


End file.
